Water, rivers and wetlands

Abstract

This chapter examines policy and governance institutions that seek to address the pressing water issues facing the world. It describes major paradigms of water governance before discussing international expert networks, key actors, formal agreements, and the substance of policy and governance. Ideas on how to collectively govern water have been crystallizing in what have become known as major paradigms of water governance. Informed by debates on sustainability, democracy and development, labels such as “integrated water resources management,” “adaptive water governance,” “collaborative water governance” and “water security” have served to channel often-competing discourses and form guiding principles of water policy and management. Freshwater policy and politics have to a considerable degree been shaped by international expert networks – perhaps more so than via intergovernmental collaboration and codified regimes. A notable episode in global expert networking was the work of the World Commission on Dams (WCD).